What Do You Know About?
by Quadrantje
Summary: Lee, Laura and Bill share a raptor to Earth. A/R. Lee's point of view. Spoilers up to Revelations.


**Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the story itself. No infringement of copyright intended.  
A/N: Didn't you see Lee's gaze on them in Revelations? I just had to write something about it. Please review.  
Summary: Lee, Laura and Bill share a raptor to Earth. A/R. Lee's point of view. Spoilers up to Revelations.**

**What do you know about?**

They had been sitting together, closely together, always keeping hold of one another in some way. Her hand on his arm. His hand on her waist. Hers on his shoulder. His on her thigh. Theirs hands clasped together. Lee had first seen it in his father's quarters, when they'd reunited after his father had fallen apart over Tigh. His father had been a broken man, a far cry from the officer he usually portrayed, and then she had come. And her presence together with a few soft words and some lingering touches had given his father back his will to fight. It had also revealed a relationship between his father and the president that Lee had never been aware of before. He liked it; it was good to see them together. But it also made him feel shut out and, he realised, a bit cautious. Apparently, no matter how old the child, there was always that feeling of betrayal when the parent found a new love. And, no matter how old the parent, the child still feared for his happiness when he did. So here he was, watching them intently as they sat opposite him, in the raptor that was taking them all to Earth.

And then the nugget in front started to get nervous, and his father got up to oversee their descent through the atmosphere. He patted her leg where his hand had been resting. She brushed the hand that had been lying on his shoulder down his back as he got up. They exchanged a brief smile and then his father moved to the front and Lee was left alone in the back with Laura, who was gazing after his father like she had done in his quarters. And then she suddenly turned her head to look directly at him and caught him staring. Lee felt himself flush.

'Mr Adama,' she said then paused to tone her voice down to a less presidential timbre, 'Lee. Something's bothering you, what is it?'

'Uh..,' Lee started, a bit embarrassed at having been caught and uncertain about how many of his thoughts he should share, 'well uh, madam President.,'

'Call me Laura, Lee,' she interrupted, 'I have a feeling this is going to get personal and after all you held the office too.'

'Laura,' he accepted, his nerves not helped at all by this new development. But he plucked his courage together and gave her an answer. 'I just wanted to wish you and my father every happiness.'

Laura's pleasant expression didn't change. 'And?' she asked.

Answering questions with honesty when prompted had always been Lee's forte and so he hesitated no more than a second now either to plunge in. 'I just hope you realise how much this, how much you, mean to my father, and that you be careful with him.' Laura tried to respond, but Lee wouldn't let her and ploughed on, expecting her to shoot him down and tell him to mind his own business but he needed to say this. 'Because the truth is that when he got in that raptor, he did it because he couldn't live without you. And he's my father and he's lost enough.' Only now that he was done talking did he dare look at her and what he saw stunned him.

Instead of the President he had come to respect and care for, it was the woman who looked back at him. The woman who had first won his loyalty in those early days after the attacks, who he had admired after he learned about her cancer and her will to fight despite of it, who had been there with them underneath the rain on Kobol. And, the woman whom, he now realised, he had forgotten about since. He hadn't really seen her in years. But his father had. He had known it during the Baltar trial, when he found out she was taking chamalla again and his father knew about it and protected her. But instead of focussing on the reminder that she was human underneath, he had turned to jealousy and that had prompted him to make her reveal her secret on the stand. It hadn't been just about 'truth and justice and all those lovely things', it was also about feeling, keenly, how the place of the trusted confidant that had been his in those first few days had now passed to his father. And he had forgotten again that there was a woman underneath the President whom all that was about. And until yesterday, he hadn't even realised what he'd done. But now, here she sat before him, waiting for the emotion to stop blocking her throat so she could answer his questions.

'Captain Apollo,' she started, faint of voice, but she swallowed deep and when she continued her voice was slightly stronger, 'when I die, when this _cancer_,' she spit out the word, 'finally gets me, it's going to be hard to leave your father. Not because I love him - which I do - but because I know how devastated he'll be. I need you to promise me to be there for him, for everything.' Her voice broke several times and at her last words tears were in Lee's eyes too.

'I promise,' he assured her.

'Don't let him destroy his model ship again.'

Lee smiled through his pain and gave her a nod as another promise. They held that look that spoke of shared concern and pain for a man they both loved, until the raptor had landed and the man himself made his way back. They buried their feelings and this promise for the time being, focussing instead on the moment at hand. Lee smiled back at his father. Laura took the hand he offered her. And so they stepped off the raptor and onto Earth.

_**Fine**_


End file.
